Page 4 of Cocky August Rake

Rose was not the foolish sort to allow romantic thoughts into her mind. And yet, tonight, she allowed herself the feeling.

Only for a moment.

The musicians began a new set, the first notes slipping over the conversation around them.

It ought to have ended there. She ought to have made some polite excuse and gone back to The Domus. He ought to have bowed and moved on.

His gaze went briefly to the dancers gathering on the floor. Then it came back to her.

“Will you dance with me?” he asked suddenly.

Rose nearly laughed.

But she saw no assumption that she would agree. No taunt meant to make refusal seem unkind.

Only a question.

“I…” She needed to return to The Domus and tell the women waiting there that Lord R Reginald Preston had left before she could find him. That they would need another plan. That she had failed to learn a single useful thing about the man who might decide all their futures.

Instead, she looked toward the dance floor.

“It is a waltz,” she said.

His silver eyes warmed with amusement. “Do you know it?”

The waltz had been one of the first things Rose learned after Nell brought her to The Domus. Along with proper speech and manners. History. Art. Philosophy. How to listen when a man spoke, even when he said very little worth hearing.

And, of course, the more practical lessons.

“Yes,” she said simply. “Do you?”

“It has been some time since I last danced a waltz, but I believe I can manage without trampling more than two or three couples.” That warmer smile touched his mouth again. “If you are willing to take the risk.”

Then he held out his hand.

Long, unadorned fingers. Skin a shade darker even than his face.

As he turned his hand upward, waiting for hers, Rose saw an angry scar crossing the center of his palm.

Her hesitation lasted only a breath, and when she placed her gloved hand over his, it closed around hers.

Not possessive, but certain.

Rose forgot about Lord Reginald Preston entirely.

The stranger led her toward the dance floor without hurrying and without asking anyone to move aside.

People moved anyway.

Rose noticed it. The way gentlemen stepped back. The way ladies shifted their skirts, making room without appearing to do so.

He seemed unaware of it.

Or perhaps he was accustomed to that sort of casual deference.

There was purpose in him. A tethered kind of energy beneath the easy movement. And somehow Rose knew…

He did not belong in a ballroom.